Housing benefit claims

This fact sheet is aimed primarily at people who have problems with a claim for housing benefit (or local housing allowance) and may be considering making a complaint to the Ombudsman.

I have a problem with my housing benefit (or local housing allowance). Can the Ombudsman help me?

Yes, as long as your complaint is about the way the council has dealt with your claim.

But if you disagree with a decision the council has made on your claim, such as the amount of benefit you have been awarded, the amount of an overpayment or whether an overpayment can be recovered from you, you can take it to an independent appeal tribunal. We would normally expect you to appeal rather than make a complaint to us.

How do I complain?

You should normally complain to the council first. Councils often have more than one stage in their complaints procedure and you will usually have to complete all stages before we will look at your complaint.

Then, if you are unhappy with the outcome, or the council is taking too long to look into the matter – we think 12 weeks is reasonable – you can complain to us.

To complain to the Ombudsman phone our helpline on 0300 061 0614 (8.30am to 5.00pm, Mondays to Fridays). You will be able to discuss your complaint with one of our advisers. You can text us on 0762 481 1595.

If you can consider my complaint what will the Ombudsman look for?

We consider whether the council has done something wrong in the way it went about dealing with your claim which has caused you problems. We cannot say whether you are entitled to benefit or not. Some of the issues we can look at are:

delay in processing your claim

delay in paying you or your landlord the benefit after the claim has been decided

delay in referring your case to the rent officer

failure to make a payment on account where appropriate

paying the benefit to the wrong person (eg direct to you when you have asked the council to pay your landlord)

delay in dealing with an appeal, for example through failing to recognise your letter as a request for an appeal, or delay in sending your appeal to the independent appeals service

failure to notify you properly of a decision and of your rights of appeal, or

unreasonable delay in responding to correspondence (we normally consider it reasonable to allow the council one month to process your claim once it has the necessary information).

What happens if the Ombudsman finds the council was at fault?

We can recommend that the council takes action to put the matter right. This depends on what the complaint is about, but often we will ask the council to:

determine the ongoing or backdated claim

pay the benefit due

refer your claim to the rent officer

issue or re-issue a decision notice with the correct information and appeal rights, or

consider an appeal or send it on to the independent appeals service.

We can recommend that the council makes a payment to recognise its fault. The amount we ask for will depend on how you have been affected by what has gone wrong.

Where we find that there has been unreasonable delay, we usually recommend a payment to recognise the anxiety and inconvenience caused. If you have got into arrears because of the delay, and your landlord is trying to evict you, we may ask for a payment to recognise the additional distress.

In deciding how much to ask for we can also take account of what you have or haven’t done to help the council. So, for example, if you have taken a long time to provide information which the council needs to make a decision on your claim, or if you know that your benefit will only cover a small part of your rent but still do not pay anything towards it, we may have to reduce the amount we ask for.

We may recommend that the council improves procedures so that the same problems do not occur again.

Examples of some complaints we have considered

Ms X was a private tenant living in shared accommodation. Her rent was £85 per week. She made a claim for housing benefit. The council assessed her claim and determined that she was entitled to housing benefit of £67.50 a week. Ms X complained that by not paying the full amount of her rent she was in arrears and risked being made homeless. We found the council had paid the maximum amount of benefit allowed under the local housing allowance rules - as a single person in shared accommodation, Ms X was entitled to a maximum of £67.50 housing benefit a week. As the council had assessed her benefit entitlement correctly, we were unable to uphold the complaint.

Mrs M is self employed. When reviewing the housing benefit claim the council asked Mrs M to provide audited accounts and details of business expenses and capital. Mrs M was able to provide some information but explained she did not have audited accounts. Mrs M provided further bank statements and declared nil income from her self-employment. The council determined she was not entitled to housing benefit. Mrs M continued to correspond with the council about housing benefit. She provided information from HMRC and Companies House and some benefit was awarded. After six months of disputing her benefit assessment Mrs M had over £2,000 arrears and a county court hearing for possession was scheduled. Mrs M made an appeal request. The council reassessed her claim and reduced the amount of benefit paid. The council should have forwarded her claim to the tribunal service but failed to do so. It should have had priority because of the pending possession action. It took the council more than six months to deal with the benefit appeal causing Mrs M considerable distress. The council paid Mrs M £200 to recognise the distress and introduced new procedures to ensure appeals are prioritised where there is an imminent threat of eviction.

Our fact sheets give some general information about the most common type of complaints we receive but they cannot cover every situation. If you are not sure whether we can look into your complaint, please contact us.

The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman provides a free, independent and impartial service. We consider complaints about the administrative actions of councils and some other authorities. We cannot question what a council has done simply because someone does not agree with it. If we find something has gone wrong, such as poor service, service failure, delay or bad advice and that a person has suffered as a result the Ombudsman aims to get it put right by recommending a suitable remedy.

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